


kiss the girl

by dear_universe



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, F/F, First Kiss, For a Friend, How Do I Tag, Little Mermaid AU!, Little Mermaid Elements, Magic, Princes & Princesses, except only princesses lol, human princess adora, mermaid catra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 16:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20969441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_universe/pseuds/dear_universe
Summary: the land princess has always loved the ocean. the sea princess has always loved the sand. maybe there's a way they can both get what they want (and maybe they'll end up wanting each other).





	kiss the girl

Once upon a time, there were two girls.

Or rather, two princesses.

Adora was a princess of the land. Her blonde hair sparkled like the sun, and was as golden as the sand that ringed her kingdom. Her skin was as fair as the marble her castle was built from, marked with the scars of adventure. Her eyes were not the blue of the sea, but of the sky, for she was always looking beyond what she had been given. The hems of her dresses were always damp, and she carried with her a perfume of salt. She was not what her people wanted her to be.

Catra was a princess of the sea. Her tail was the crimson of a starfish, sparkling in the light like hidden gemstones. Her hair was loose and curly, seaweed tangled in a fisherman’s net. Her skin was the warm brown of a smooth pebble, resting on the ocean floor. One of her eyes was the color of a storm, churning and twisting and ever-changing, but her other eye was the gold of the sun-warmed sand she so longed to touch. Flowers tucked in her hair turned to dust. Shells were ground into pieces. She was not what her people wanted her to be.   
  
Once upon a time, Adora turned sixteen. The royal court knew how the princess loved the ocean, and threw her a grand celebration on the royal boat. There, it was announced that Adora was to be wed to a prince from the mainland kingdom. To strengthen ties. To bring wealth to the kingdom. To break Adora’s heart.

The announcement conjured up a storm, not only within Adora but in the sea. Lightning struck, and fire overtook the ship. Adora could see nothing but flames licking at the sky, at the wood of the boat, at the edge of her dress.

So she jumped.

It was Catra’s sixteenth birthday, too, the first time she’d been allowed up to the surface. Catra, ever curious, always waiting for something to happen, had chosen to follow the party. She’d been watching the ship, watching the beautiful ball gowns swish against the timbers of the deck, watching the princess’s face fall as a sparkling ring was placed on her finger.

She watched the princess fall beneath the frothing waves. And Catra swam after her.

The princess looked even more beautiful up close, her golden hair billowing around her like the silk of the court ladies’ dresses, her face soft and free of the haunted quality it had held earlier. She looked too young to be married, too young to rule. Too young to die. She looked like someone who might understand Catra. And she was sinking fast.

Catra reached out and hooked an arm around the princess’s waist, using her free hand to rip the voluminous skirt from Adora’s dress. The waterlogged silk came free in a single swipe, the hoop skirt following, both sinking slowly down into the nothing of the abyss. The light of the burning ship was still visible through the crashing waves, and Catra followed it, swimming as fast as she could to bring the princess to the surface.

They broke through the waves at the same time the sun broke over the edge of the horizon, color bleeding over the landscape as blood trickled down the blonde princess’s forehead. But she did not gasp, and her eyes did not open to meet the sky from which they drew their color.

Catra tightened her grip on the land princess’s waist and made for the shore.

* * *

The first time Catra touched the land she’d spent years dreaming about, she hardly noticed. Her focus was solely on the girl lying before her, golden hair becoming one with the beach, her figure a pale mark against the sand. The girl’s eyes remained closed, the torn edges of her skirt as limp as she was.

Catra took the princess’s hand in her own. The princess needed to wake. Catra gazed down at her, her porcelain skin and her spun-silk hair, and knew she had to live. She had everything Catra wanted. She was everything Catra wanted.

And so the sea princess sang a song to the land princess, one she had heard many times throughout her childhood, one that had always felt like something that was purely her own.

As the last notes of Catra’s song, clear as a bell, were swept away by the wind, voices could be heard over the crest of a dune. The sea princess tucked one last curl behind the land princess’s ear and dove back beneath the water, returning to her kingdom as Adora returned to hers.

Blue eyes met sky at last as Adora slowly sat up, lifting a hand to trace along the edge of her cheek. There was the memory of a touch there, the ghost of a song still floating in the air. She looked down at herself, in an elaborate bodice and underthings, her skirt ripped to shreds, and felt as though she had missed something important.

“Princess!” The royal court, scrambling over a dune, skirts lifted in dainty hands. Feeling self-conscious, Adora reached to tuck her hair behind her ears, only to find a small shell woven into her waves. She cupped it in her palm, tilting it back and forth to see the way the sunlight glanced off of it.

“Princess?”

Adora tucked the shell into her bodice and rose to greet her court.

* * *

Hours later, Adora had been brushed, fed, and changed. The tangles were combed out of her hair, her clothes replaced, her feet laced into dainty slippers. But the smell of salt still clung to her, no matter what waters and oils the court ladies applied.

The shell stayed with her too, clutched so tightly there were groove marks in her palm. As swaths of white fabric overtook her, she opened her hand ever so slightly, to see it glint just so.

“I thought the wedding wouldn’t be for another month.” The large white gown was laced so uncomfortably tight, the princess felt sure her ribcage would burst. She ran a hand over the lace panels across her bodice, surprised she was even able to move her arms in her fitted sleeves. The dress was done in mainland style so as to impress her fiance and his court.

“Oh, Princess.” The royal advisor smiled down on the princess, her smile a warm sun but her eyes colder than the sea before a storm. “The wedding is in two days.”

All the color flooded from Adora’s cheeks, leaving her as white as the dress, and only half as substantial.

The advisor continued, seemingly without notice. “We almost lost you, without anyone to carry on the royal succession. We need things to happen in a more… efficient fashion.”

So they needed Adora to produce an heir before she died, as if that was all she was good for. As if she was created just so she herself could create some twisted sequel to her story.

The dress felt tighter than before, squeezing the air out of her lungs, the stiff white fabric an endless expanse of something she could never break, never stain, never imprint in the ways that made her who she was.

The princess still smelled like salt. She wondered, when she left the island, if that would stay, or if that, too, would fade.

That night, she stood on her balcony, looking up at the stars winking in the sky. They were so far away, so far above anything that could impact them.

Adora glanced down at the shell in her palm, which still glowed despite the midnight sky. She thought back to the voice, her song ringing out as clear as a bell. She wondered where the girl had come from. Adora wondered if she could join her.

As though the shell had heard her thoughts, a sound began to trickle through it as though from a flute. The song the princess had heard, playing as loud and clear as if the singer was standing right before her. Adora couldn’t understand the words, but she knew what they wanted her to do. She knew what she had to do.

She set the shell gently on the edge of the balcony and tugged her nightgown over her head, letting it fall to the ground in a puddle of pink and childhood dreams. For the second time that day, she stood, shivering, in her underclothes.

A simple sweep of the arm sent the shell tumbling over the edge, sparkling as it fell into the ocean, which mirrored the diamond sky above.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the land princess followed it.

As she hit the water, she felt the last bits of silk falling away, the salt overtaking her. She was sinking into it, surrounded by it, overwhelmed by it. Her legs welded together, and as she flipped and twisted, she caught a glint of sky blue scales sparkling in the fading water.

She swam back to the shore, where the other princess was waiting.

Catra had been to the sea witch, the one in the darkest cave in the deepest part of the sea, where the fish glowed with something stronger than sunlight, and a swirling darkness dimmed the scales on Catra’s tail.

“For this to work, someone must take your place,” the sea witch reminded the princess, her tentacles writhing around them, one curling around Catra’s waist, another around her wrist. “Willingly.”

And despite the darkness and the tentacles and the teeth of a nearby fish gleaming menacingly, Catra thought of sky blue, and she smiled. “She already has.”

And so Catra rose at the same time Adora fell.

Now, the sea princess looked right in the wedding gown in a way Adora never had. There was no ring on her finger, and her bare feet peeked out from the folds of the gown, but it still looked as though it was made for her. The white glowed against her tawny skin, and her two-tone eyes sparkled in the light.

“They said you had to get married,” Catra said. “But I feel you should have some choice in the matter.” She walked to the water and took the glowing shell from Adora’s hand, closing her own hand around it and opening it to reveal two shining rings, golden like the sand, like Adora’s hair flowing over her shoulders in the moonlight.

Adora reached forward and took the ring from Catra’s palm. “It’s an easy choice to make, given the circumstances. After all, every princess needs a partner.”

Once upon a time, a land princess met a sea princess. And once upon a time, they fell in love: slowly, and then all at once.

Their first kiss tasted of salt.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! please leave a comment if you liked it, and come say hi to me on tungle at nbdoubletrouble ! i'd love to write something for you or do a writing trade.
> 
> have a lovely day! <3


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